"The International Trade Commission voted yesterday to investigate Apple for patent infringement allegations launched by the Google-owned Motorola Mobility. As expected, Motorola is asking for import bans on just about every iOS device, including iPhones, iPods, and iPads. What might be surprising is that Motorola is also asking for a ban on every type of Mac OS X computer, claiming Apple's iMessage technology infringes a Motorola patent." Let's hope all those products get banned. And that all Motorola phones get banned. Let's hope everything gets banned from the US. And yes, I changed Motorola into Google for the headline.

"Back in the 80s there were no software patents, and it was xerox who pioneered the graphical user interface. Now what if they patented popup menus, scrollbars, the desktop with icons that look like folders and sheets of paper? Would a young and inexperienced apple have survived the legal assault of a much larger and more mature company like xerox?"

Apple didn't copy from Xerox, they were shown the goods, which they liked, and then Xerox and Apple cooperated on the Macintosh GUI. A number of Xerox people worked at Apple, a number even joining Apple.

I agree if Xerox had patented all their GUI stuff and refused to license them it would have made things more difficult for GUI builders, but as it went Apple didn't copy/steal from Xerox: they worked together.

PS
I recently opened up a Mac Classic II, which was broken, and noticed a number of chips labeled Samsung (and Apple). How things can change.